Nine years after the Ezidi genocide, there are still missing Ezidi women and children. Some are found and reunited with their families but they are rare exceptions. Their kidnapping and disappearance has largely been forgotten by regional and international states.
The question of justice and what to do with their captors has also been rarely discussed in the media. After the defeat of ISIS on the battlefield their legal fate has hanged in the air. Very few ISIS terrorists have been put on public trial and the names of their financiers and benefactors have not even been mentioned.
I think the armies that fought ISIS were given bad legal, military and political advice. ISIS terrorists should have been executed upon capture because of the nature of their crimes and the sick ideology they fight for. Keeping them prisoners out of some misguided moral duty does the people of the region no good. It keeps the problem of terrorism and the prospect of ISIS coming back from the grave front and center.
I don't know about the regimes in Syria and Iraq but the YPG's political leaders have acted under the mistaken notion that international law actually matters. They respect the U.S., EU, and UN too much. They listen to them too much.
But, after many years of pleading with international bodies about the fate of ISIS prisoners the authorities in the Kurdish territories in Syria have decided to put them on trial. Will they give them life sentences, hand them back to their countries of origin, or finally kill them and devote their energies elsewhere?
One thing is certain, keeping angry terrorists under lock and key can't be done forever. If nothing is done ISIS will free itself in YPG's makeshift prisons and regroup to do even more damage.
An excerpt from, "International laws allow Autonomous Administration to bring ISIS members to trial" ANF News, June 12, 2023:
In a written statement on June 10, the Autonomous Administration announced that it would begin the trial of foreign non-Syrian ISIS members for their terror crimes in a way that would guarantee the rights of the victims and their families, based on regional and international laws.
